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National Conservation and Environmental Policy

by REP Director Josh First
statement at the National Press Club, Washington, DC; July 14, 2004

Good morning.

My name is Josh First. I am from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I am here this morning to talk about national conservation and environmental policy.

It brings me no pleasure to say the things I am about to say, but I feel I must. As a life-long hunter and fisherman, a proud member of the National Rifle Association, a businessman, a member of the national board of directors of Republicans for Environmental Protection, and a member and officer of many other conservation organizations, and as a registered Republican who voted for George W. Bush in 2000, I am here to say that America’s national conservation policy must be better and that it must change to serve all of the public’s interests.

What I feel most strongly about are open space protection, our public lands, and wetlands. Let’s start with wetlands.

Wetlands are by definition small and fragmented, so any policy that says that “small and fragmented wetlands do not deserve protection” is silly on its face. Wetlands are critical habitat for ducks and other gamebirds, the hunting of which provides hundreds of millions of dollars of sustainable and renewable economic development every year. This administration must do a better job of recognizing the value of hunting, the central role of wetlands in sustaining waterfowl, and the flood-prevention services that wetlands contribute free of charge to the American economy every year.

Second, open space and wildlife habitat are disappearing rapidly across the country, falling prey to short-sighted forms of development. This administration has understandably been reluctant to seek regulation as a means to control sprawl development, but with a few notable exceptions it has also assiduously and inexplicably avoided capitalism-driven, market-based methods for protecting open space. Protecting the environment by buying it is an old Republican policy, and it is one of the most popular means among citizens for protecting special places, including wetlands. If regulation is diminished, then proactive incentives and market-based conservation need to fill the breach. This administration must recognize that substantive environmental protection has to occur under its watch, one way or another.

Finally, some of America’s neatest public lands are at risk. I own a Tree Farm and two chainsaws, and we cut down trees for profit, so I am all for good forestry and am certainly no tree hugger. But when pristine, really special places in America’s national forests that have never seen an axe or a saw, or maybe even a human being, are opened up forever with permanent logging roads that count as a financial “credit” for the logger, then I have a real problem with that. That activity is not a healthy forest initiative, it’s a healthy industry pocketbook initiative, and comes at great cost to both America’s wildest hunting areas and to the taxpayers who end up subsidizing it. Let’s have a straight-up logging policy for our national forests, where a logging job occurs only if the successful bids from industry cover the real value, and costs, of the harvest. Or let Mother Nature take her course.

America’s traditional values and culture are directly tied to America’s traditional landscapes, and what concerns me most is how badly they are both eroding. Landscapes shape the way that people see themselves and how they relate to one another. As a conservative, I want small towns, rural areas and wild lands to survive. The people who live there are my kind of people. At stake, is the future of the quality of life in America, and the continued link between the surrounding landscape’s aesthetics and our view of ourselves, our families, and our values. America’s fundamental values were created on the frontier and written down by frontiersmen. Wild people need wild land, and Americans are at their best when they are a little wild at heart, and that is best achieved by connecting them to the open land that sustains us.

Writing in a Boston Globe op-ed in the fall of 2001, Theodore Roosevelt IV, also a member of Republicans for Environmental Protection, concisely reflected on the influence of open space on American values. Speaking about America’s rural landscape in general and about its public lands in particular, he wrote: “Our country is about more than the success of our economic enterprise, and it is that more that keeps us strong: our moral vigor, determination, and grit, our openness and generosity. The vastness of [America’s] lands has harbored the vastness of the American spirit, and our people will not part with either easily. And they shouldn't.”

So, in conclusion, at this challenging time of defending our nation, when America’s citizens are looking inward, a time when we must be determined, vigorous and generous, Americans need to be able to experience their cultural touchstones and to experience the important symbols of our national identity. America’s public lands are more than a simple source of short-term economic development. They embody the heart and soul of our great nation and they should be treated accordingly.